Premday #3 - The Network Usergroup Survey

The Premday Networking User Group presents its yearly survey

Transcript

1. Network group survey
2. For vendors: look for the eyes
3. Who are we? 21,000+ switches combined Production network 18,000+ Management network 3,000+
4. Do you use SONiC? Yes/no? Since when? • 2018 • 2022 • 2023
5. Blockers according to non-SONiC users Main issues • Missing features • Gaps in operational tooling • Lack of vendor support Some are concerned • Stability/reliability • Lack of internal expertise • CLI
6. What's missing according to SONiC users • Slow upstream bug fixes including from vendors • No reliable API • No reproducible SONiC builds • CVE handling unclear
7. What feature-set do you use? Top 5 features • BGP • EVPN Type 5 + VXLAN • VLAN • IPv6 • RFC8950: IPv4 + IPv6 prefixes over IPv6 link-local
8. SONiC: how important is it?
9. When you buy network devices
10. How important having multiple vendors is? ASIC Switches
11. SONiC: for which roles? Which SONiC flavor? Today All users: • Data center fabric Most users: • Using Community SONiC Enterprise SONiC users: • Targeting migration to Community Future targets Top 3: • Management - Community • DCI - Community • Edge - Enterprise (then Community when ready)
12. Open source is:
13. How do you manage your devices? Configuration Top 3 • In database: NetBox or custom • Static in Git • Code generated (fire and forget) Operations Top 3 • CLI • Framework (Ansible, custom) • API: gNMI, REST, …
14. How do you monitor your devices? Data sources & protocols • SNMP • Prometheus • Streaming Telemetry (gNMI)
15. Is AI networking important?
16. Other comments/subjects • Common management framework to simplify deployment • More direct vendor contributions to Community SONiC • Easier contribution process to Community SONiC
17. Questions from vendors
18. Community SONiC: qualification Evaluation before first deployment • Lab testing with real hardware • sonic-vs images in lab • Progressive roll-out Validation processes & stability criteria Basic checks: Device boots, ASIC manageable Feature checks: BGP, EVPN Type-5/VXLAN, VLAN/VRF, LLDP/SNMP/DHCP relay Health signals: monitoring, containers stable, logs, scripted checks L1/L2 & optics
19. Community SONiC Features avoided and why • L2 features beyond VLANs (STP, EVPN Type 2, etc.) • MLAG • Non-standard protocols • Multi-protocol designs
20. Community SONiC Recommendations for jumping into SONiC Before going to SONiC Define and refine requirements: • Community if full match • Enterprise is easier, but higher cost and less diversity Expect operational challenges: • Invest in people skills and time • Leverage automation and internal tooling • Upgrade Reach out to SONiC infra-owners Required skills • Networking • SRE/DevOps • Software development
21. Community SONiC Repositories and contributions Repository/fork maintenance • Private only • Public + private fork • Nothing yet, planned once ready Our contribution workflow • Opening GitHub issues • Patch published in our public fork • Pull requests when relevant • Not clear/easy contribution path
22. Ports speed Servers: next 2 years Top 3 • 100G • 25G • 200G GPU • 400G • 800G, if larger scale Edge: 800G? Increase due to AI?
23. Do you use tunnels at the edge? Yes/no, scale • Yes, at large scale • Yes, at low scale • No Protocols • EVPN/VXLAN
24. How do you enforce customer segmentation? Where • At the Edge • And/or, at ToR level • And/or, directly at server level How • VRFs • VXLAN • VLAN • Filtering: Firewalling / ACL
25. One more thing & Questions https://sonic.premday.org is live, goals: • Be a reference and meeting point for every infra-owners interested in SONiC • Centralize content from experienced members • By sharing (WIP): • Guides, tooling, and resources • List of community SONiC compatible hardware validated by Premday members